Born, Darkly (Darkly, Madly 1)

“No. We’re not done.” His features harden. “Come here, London.”

All I have to do is bang on the door. I glance between Grayson and the door, and fear riots through me. How big of a disaster could Grayson create out of my life?

I walk toward him slowly. “Turning my life into a media circus would get you off, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s tempting—” he grabs my waist and hauls me to him “but I have bigger things in mind.”

“Let go—” I wriggle off his lap.

“I need to know how you felt,” he whispers. “In that moment. When you killed him…how did it feel? What did you use?”

Stunned, I stare down at him. “You’re a monster.”

“I’m your monster. Tell me, and you’ll own me. Completely.” He strokes the side of my hand. The rattle of his chains forces my eyes closed. Memories awakened. “You want to tell me.”

My body tense, he expertly guides the confession forth. My mind clicks off, like a switch he can toggle at will, and I allow him to pull me down against him. I straddle the man who threatens everything. My freedom. My morality. My sanity.

“A key,” I whisper with trembling lips. “He wore a key around his neck. To a dark basement cage where he kept them. I tore it free and drove it into his jugular.”

His fingers softly brush my hair from my eyes, remove my glasses. His gentle touch a stark contrast to the hardness I feel beneath me. He’s aroused.

“What did you feel?” he asks. His mouth hovers near mine, tasting my desperate breaths.

“I felt…free,” I admit. “Disembodied. Like I could do anything.”

“You can,” he coaxes. “It’s in your nature.”

A sharp pain thorns my chest. No. My internal alarm sounds, signaling my departure from reality. I attempt to stand, but he anchors strong hands to my thighs. The feel of him so hard, so wanting, pressed to my most intimate body part. Desire burns away any grasp I had on reason.

I shake my head. Force my glasses on. “We don’t get to do anything we want. There has to be boundaries, rules.”

He touches his forehead to mine. “We can make our own.”

My hands glide over his forearms. Tenderly feeling the scars he wears outside that match my inside. It’s intoxicating, the way he seduces my pain away, as if we really do command our own world.

No pain.

I’m here with him, and it would be so simple to fall all the way. Just let go. No hiding, no shame. He found me. He discovered my vile secret, and it excites him, what it could mean if I’d only release the string tethering me to a life so binding.

But that’s the trade. I risk losing what makes me human. Pain is human, and it means I still feel.

“No. I’m not damning myself again.” I break his hold and stand, backing up until my shoulders hit the wall.

“I’m not giving up,” he says, but he doesn’t pursue me. “We were designed for each other. Don’t you feel the pain when we’re apart? Don’t you want it to stop?”

I swallow. He’s too inside my head; I have to get away. “Guard.”

“You’re mine, London. We can dance this violent dance until we bleed each other dry, or we can surrender. Your choice. But I will have you.”

“That monster born of sin and death died in a car wreck. She’s gone.”

“Then it’s my mission to resurrect her.”

I pound on the door until it opens. I throw myself through the doorway, past the guard and his questions, and out into the open. The fresh air douses my heated skin, but the pain latches on to me, driving a searing iron into my back.

I scream.

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